Fallacies of the faculty, being the spirit of the chronothermal system. In a series of lectures / [Samuel Dickson].

  • Dickson, Samuel, 1802-1869
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fallacies of the faculty, being the spirit of the chronothermal system. In a series of lectures / [Samuel Dickson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    302/310 (page 298)
    cury; and many eruptions of the skin and diseases of the joints, I have traced to this mineral But, there is one thing I must explain to you, and it is this—that while in England the rapid thermal transitions and other in¬ fluences of the climate lead to affections of the nose, lungs, throat, and joints—the climatic agency of India tends to the production of liver and bowel decomposition instead; and that is the reason why, in England, mercury more fre¬ quently gives rise to what are termed a the syphilitic symptoms/’ than it does in India, where it more often produces the very dysenteric disease and hepatic destruc¬ tion, which, I admit at the same time, in other instances, I have known it to prevent and cure. It is like every other agent in nature, a two-edged weapon, cutting right and wrong, according to constitution and predisposition; and this shows you the necessity, when you try its powers, of beginning it in small doses, and watching its effects with a scrupulous attention. But, with regard to what are termed the secondary effects of the venereal poisons,—• the only secondary symptoms which I have ever known to result from either a gonorrheea or a primary sore, have been an occasional bubo; and, in rare cases, the train of symp¬ toms known by the name of rheumatism;—and this, perhaps I shall be told, is evidence of a poison in the blood —of a syphilitic taint—of lues venerea !—Gentlemen, the very same train of symptoms take place daily, in parti¬ cular constitutions, after the bruise of a toe, or the intro¬ duction of a bougie into the urethra. Can there be a poison in the blood in either of these cases ? To the same causes I have traced eruptions of the skin; and it is quite possible that eruptions may also be the effect of a sore or gonorrheea in persons predisposed to cutaneous disease, though, even in this case, you may be deceived by the treatment; for the copaiba, so often given for gonorrheea, can of itself produce both cutaneous disease and rheuma¬ tism. Oh, many and many a time, have I seen diseases produced by copaiba, set down to the phantom syphi¬ lis ! and, when mercury cured them, which it sometimes